


so tender and mild

by twilightstargazer



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe- If they lived, F/M, Kid Fic, Marauders' Era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-01
Updated: 2016-12-01
Packaged: 2018-09-03 15:22:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8718931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twilightstargazer/pseuds/twilightstargazer
Summary: 5 Christmases at the Potter-Evans household.





	

**Author's Note:**

> this is just 100% domestic fluff tbh

i.

“So I mean, hypothetically, what’s the worst way to tell someone you’re pregnant?” Lily asks, and James freezes in a half crouch under the scraggly tree.

“What.”

“The worst way to let someone know they’re pregnant.”

He scrubs a hand across his face, almost knocking off his glasses in the process. “Oh, Merlin, I don’t know. Probably this,” he says, before looking up at her, swallowing. “You’re pregnant?”

His voice is strangled, and honestly, she can’t really blame him. They’re nineteen and have only been married three months now. He’s right to be scared.

“This was supposed to be a hypothetical situation,” she huffs, though there’s not much heat behind her words. James just stares at from his spot on the rug and she sighs, slumping into the couch. “Yeah,” she mutters, “Found out last week. I’m about six weeks along.”

“Fuck,” he swears, messing up his hair, and she tries for a smile. It falls flat.

“That’s what got us into this mess in the first place,” she says weakly, and he can’t help the snort that escapes him. Lily tugs at a loose thread on her nightgown, looking down into her lap. “You- You’re okay with this right? I know we never really talked about kids but-”

“Yeah,” he says, scrambling up to his feet, “Yeah of course Lils. I’m, well ecstatic is probably the wrong word to use here, but I’m okay with this.” He crosses the room in three full strides, kneeling in front of her while a hand comes up to cup her cheek.

“I want this,” he murmurs, brushing a knuckles across her cheekbone. “I want  _ you _ .”

She sniffs, and her eyes are a little glassy when she looks up, and he leans his forehead against hers, kissing her soft. “Whatever you need, I promise I’ll be right here with you.”

“Well, what I need right now is for you to let me go,” she says, pulling back with a sigh, “Morning sickness is apparently a lot more than just the morning.”

He huffs out a laugh, and sneaks a kiss to her temple before she wriggles out of his grasp.

“Merry fucking Christmas to me,” she gasps, before there’s the sound of heaving coming from the bathroom, and James immediately springs off the couch to help her.

* * *

 

 

ii.

“You know, we could just ignore Christmas this year,” James says, voice heavy with sleep, “He’s only five months. He’s not going to remember this. Object permanence isn’t a thing as yet.”

It’s 5:02 a.m. and Lily is trying to wrangle a squirming, squawling baby into a fresh diaper. James mostly squints at them from the bed, having forgone his glasses

She snorts. “Right. Let’s pretend that we didn’t buy him at least eight presents,” she says, swaddling Harry like a pro, “And that he’s going to get maybe twenty more just from Padfoot and they.”

“I feel like we probably should have tried to curb our enthusiasm with respects to the gift buying.”

“We’re over excited first time parents.” Harry’s cries have softened to a whimper and he grips on to the finger Lily offers him with a fierce strength. “There’s nothing we can do about it now.”

“On the bright side, my parents used to give me like thirty gifts by themselves and I turned out fine,” James says, lying back down.

Lily snorts again. “Yeah, fine is matter of perspective there mate,” she says before depositing a baby on his bare chest. “Merry Christmas.”

“Wow, thanks, a baby,” he says flatly, rearranging his hands to cradle him properly to his chest. “This is exactly what I wanted from my hot wife in bed on Christmas morning.”

Lily slides back into bed, pressing her freezing toes to his calves and making him yelp. “You can grope me in the morning.”

“It is morning.”

“It’s not morning until the sun comes up.”

“Well, our  _ son  _ is up.”

She glares at him halfheartedly and pulls the blankets up to her chin. “If you weren’t holding our kid, I would definitely kick you out of bed.”

“I love you too, Evans.”

“It’s Potter.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he says, failing to hide a smile. James presses a kiss to her knuckles while shifting Harry, who fell asleep on his chest. “Merry Christmas, love.”

 

* * *

 

iii.

The living room was a veritable warzone, scraps of coloured wrapping paper littering the floor, empty gift boxes scattered in every nook and cranny, and one tiny, chubby toddler tottering after Sirius, screaming in delight.

Lily just observes the madness, leaning against the wall with a hitched eyebrow.

“Did you know kids could be so messy?” James asks, trying in vain to make some sense of the madness in their corner.

She glances at him out of the corner of her eye. “Did you not know this? We’ve had a kid for almost eighteen months and you’re only just realising this?”

He hooks his arm around her neck and presses a messy kiss to the top of her head while Lily tries to squirm away.

“How are you so calm about this?” he asks, holding her close and resting his chin on top her head. “Usually you’re ready to have an aneurysm at the sight of a mess.”

“Oh trust me, I am,” she says mildly, leaning into him, “I am screaming on the inside.”

He swipes another kiss. “Well, maybe I can make you scream on the outside.”

It takes her a minute to catch on, but when she does, she elbows him in the gut, sending a whoosh of air past his lips, still curled in an insouciant grin.

“Prat,” she huffs, chink tinged pink.

“Prat that you married,” he reminds her and she rolls her eyes.

“Merlin knows why,” she teases, before looking back out at the wrecked living room and gnawing on her bottom lip.

“This is bothering you so much right now, isn’t it?” he grins, rubbing his thumb across her wrist.

She nods once, curtly, “Tell Sirius he better clean it up, or else I’m giving Harry straight sugar and sending him over to stay for the weekend.”

James laughs a full bellied laugh that has Harry stopping in his tracks before making a beeline towards him. He leans down, still chortling, and scoops him up, balancing him on his hip.

“A whole weekend, huh?” he grins, absentmindedly prying the bauble Harry was trying to fit in his mouth out of his hands.

It’s her turn to flash him a cheeky grin as she says, “Will, I need to treat myself to something nice for Christmas, don’t I?”

It’s followed by an even cheekier wink as she heads into the kitchen while Sirius grumbles about them corrupting his godson.

* * *

 

 

iv.

James stretches out on the couch after magicking away the last piece of gift paper. This year they invited everyone over- the remainder of the Marauders, Lily’s Hogwarts friends and a few people from his office. Even Dumbledore and McGonagall stopped by, just long enough to tickle Harry and have a slice of cake before disappearing again.

“I say we did pretty well this year,” he says to Lily, who’s in the kitchen packing away the last of the leftovers. “Maybe we finally have this adult thing down pat.”

“Says the almost twenty three year old man,” comes her dry response.

“Hey, if anyone’s almost twenty three here, it’s you,” he laughs, “Don’t try to dim my youthful glow, Evans.”

A few minutes later, she pads over, scooping Harry up from where he was playing with a set of wizarding blocks on the floor, and showering him with kisses. She sits down on the couch next to him, and James wraps his arm around the two of them.

“I’m glad to see in our old age we learnt how to limit ourselves when it comes to giving him gifts,” he says. “Just the one this year.”

“Just the most expensive toy broom on the market that he’s going to outgrow in six months, you mean,” she replies, wry.

“Listen, I just want the best for my son. He’s going to grow up and be an amazing quidditch player, just like his father.”

“As long as it’s not at the expense of anymore of my vases.”

“Hey! You hated that vase and we both know it. It was ugly as fu- duck,” he says lamely, casting a quick glance at the toddler between them.

Lily can’t help it; she starts laughing, first a soft giggle that eventually evolves into a loud, eye crinkling guffaw that has Harry climbing onto her lap in concern, a long string of ‘Mama’s flowing past his mouth.

“Mama is fine,” Lily assures him before she sets him on the ground gently, “Go get the card we made for Daddy.”

“Oh, a card, hmm?” says James, shuffling closer to her on the couch. “Is that my present this year?”

“It’s your present from the two of us, like every year.”

“I already got my present from the two of you this morning.”

“Well, it’s another one,” she huffs impatiently, smiling when Harry returns.

He gives James the thick envelope before Lily lifts him back up and sets him on their laps.

Inside is a crudely done drawing of the whole family and the words ‘Merry Christmas Daddy, I love you,’ scrawled out in big, messy letters.

“Did you make this, bud?” he asks softly, tickling him under his chin.

Harry nods dramatically, and he hears Lily stifle a laugh. “Yep,” he says before pointing out each person with his chubby fingers, “That’s you, and me, and mama, and baby.”

James goes very still.

“Baby?” he croaks, and he looks back over at Lily, who’s staring intently at him, bottom lip caught between her teeth.

“I thought we should keep with tradition,” she says, softly, looking down at her lap for a moment, “I figured this way would be better than the hypothetical worst one.”

“You are such a dork,” he says, grinning widely before leaning over to kiss her, hard.

Lily makes a noise of surprise against his lips, but soon her mouth softens and the kiss slows until they’re interrupted by an impatient toddler who has much more interesting things to do.

Harry slips back on to the ground to play with his blocks and James asks, “So you’re pregnant again?”

“Yep,” she nods, “It’s still early though. Might be due sometime in August.”

He presses a kiss to her temple, “This is the best present I’ve gotten all day.”

She giggles. “Well, I’m glad you appreciate it, and I’m holding you to that during the first few months of no sleep and dirty diapers.”

James groans out loud, and Lily grins wide.

 

* * *

v.

Christmas is, for lack of better word, a disaster.

To be honest she doesn’t know what she expected when having to deal with both a three year old and a four month old.

Elizabeth still can’t sleep through the night, and takes a certain joy in waking up everyone by screaming as loud as she can at 3 a.m. Harry is disgruntled at not getting to sleep in, and not having enough room on the bed for all four of them. Sirius, Remus and Peter aren’t coming until dinner. Ellie is afraid of the tree and cries everytime she gets too close to it, and the cat ended up toppling it in his haste to hide from Harry, making her cry even more.

And it wasn’t even lunch as yet.

“Why does Ellie get presents? She’s a baby, it’s not like she knows what to do with them anyway,” Harry sulks, looking on as his baby sister drools all over the new pair of socks someone had given her.

Lily and James share a look.

“Most of her presents are clothes, bud, she didn’t get any toys like you did,” James says quickly, trying to stop an impending disaster. It seems to work as Harry lets the topic drop and goes back to his hoard.

“He is obviously your son,” she says, and he smirks, ruffling up his hair.

“Well, yeah, isn’t it obvious?” he grins, watching as Harry, in all his messy haired glory, gets distracted by a toy quidditch set.

“Let’s hope this one is at least a little like me,” she says, blowing a raspberry against her cheek. Ellie gurgles in delight.

James wraps an arm around her shoulders, and presses a kiss to her temple. “Well, if she doesn’t, we can always try again. Keeping with the Christmas traditions, right?”

**Author's Note:**

> i'm doing 12 days of ficmas on [tumblr](http://hiddenpolkadots.tumblr.com)! come on over and say hi :)


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